Covid-19 hasn’t canceled everything. Very recently, Frédéric Arnault, chief strategy and digital officer at TAG Heuer, hosted a party at the Caldwell Factory in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood to welcome the arrival of the brand’s third-generation Connected Watch collection.
Introduced in 2015, the TAG Heuer Connected Watch was among the Swiss industry’s first luxury smartwatches. Powered by Wear OS by Google (yet compatible with iOS for iPhone diehards), the watch is billed as a performance-enhancing device. Complete with built-in GPS and heart-rate monitor, it features the new TAG Heuer Sports app, which provides key metrics such as speed, pace, distance, heart rate and splits displayed in real-time for golf, running, cycling, walking, fitness and other sport-related sessions.
The watch—which comes in a 45 mm stainless-steel or titanium case—offers a state-of-the-art, custom-designed digital experience thanks to a TAG Heuer mobile companion app. Styled to resemble the mechanical chronographs for which the brand is known, the watch stands apart for its refined finish, including faceted lugs, polished and brushed details, a graduated ceramic bezel, a central rotating crown flanked by two functional pushers, a screwed caseback and an interchangeable bracelet system that allows wearers to switch between a range of straps in black rubber or a steel bracelet with a folding buckle.
Beyond its aesthetic offerings, the Connected Watch collection delivers on the promise baked into its name: Using a microphone located on the left side of the case, users can connect with services such as Google Assistant and Google Translate. Like virtually all smartwatches, it has e-mail and message notifications, Google Pay, music controls, an agenda, weather, maps and a wide selection of apps, for iOS and Android mobile users alike.
“The TAG Heuer Connected watch was designed and engineered with the same passion and attention to detail as our mechanical watches,” Arnault said in a statement. “Quality of execution is paramount in everything we do, and we never compromise on aesthetics or emotion. The Connected watch is not only a beautiful timepiece, but it’s also a truly immersive experience, as it now sits within a complete TAG Heuer digital ecosystem geared towards performance and sports. The navigation has been deeply refined so the product is as intuitive and easy to use as possible, both in everyday life and during sports sessions. It expresses the brand in a completely new way and offers limitless possibilities in terms of innovation for the future. Thanks to the talent and dedication of our teams, the new Connected is a truly brand-defining product that will lead the way into a new era for TAG Heuer.”
The collection ranges from US$1,800 (about RM7,754) for a steel model to US$2,350 (about RM10,124) for one in sandblasted titanium with a black DLC treatment.
